Jim Cornish, Queensland Bill, Old Scotton, Black Joe and the first-person narrator head out to run a mob of brumbies. When the mob shoots over a precipice and Jim follows them, they think that Jim has been killed. Although the brumbies give the bushmen the slip, the group discovers Jim had been propelled into a soft bush and he emerges with a broken arm, ready within a week to participate in the yarding of the brumbies after a second attempt.